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The head of the world's largest food producer believes high prices are due to the growing of crops for biofuels."The time of cheap food prices is over," says Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. He is highly critical of the rise in the production of bio-diesel, saying this puts pressure on food supplies by using land and water that would otherwise be used to grow crops for human or animal consumption."If no food was used for fuel, the prices would come down again - that is very clear," he says. "We are now in a new world with a completely different level...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Obama administration pressed Beijing on Thursday to accept a code of conduct for resolving territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea, a difficult U.S. mediation effort that has faced resistance from the communist government. It has endeared the U.S., however, to once-hostile countries in Southeast Asia. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' annual conference. Sitting across from each other at a long table in a grand hall with chandeliers, Clinton stressed the different ways Washington...

China's premier Wen Jiabao was in Iceland on Friday, beginning a tour of northern Europe that will focus on Chinese investment in a continent eager for funds and to trade with the rising world power. … That the prime minister of the world's most populous nation should stop first, however, on a remote island of just 320,000 has raised hopes for an injection of Chinese cash into an economy ravaged by the bursting of a financial bubble in 2008—but also suspicion of Beijing's hunger for natural resources. A Chinese developer is fighting a government decision last year to bar him...

Pittsburgh--(ENEWSPF)--October 14, 2011. Today, Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry unveiled his energy plan for America. The plan, if implemented, will poison our air and water with toxic pollutants like soot, smog, arsenic, cadmium, dioxin, lead, and formaldehyde. It would also undercut safeguards from mercury, which is a neurotoxin and is known to harm developing fetuses. “Rick Perry’s energy plan reads like a roadmap for making America’s kids sick,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. “Under this plan, we can expect to see much higher rates of asthma among children, and risk to pregnant women from mercury...

I remember taking a forestry class my freshman year of college. The curriculum, presented by a veteran instructor from the California Department of Forestry, covered several related topics that included ecology, biology, life cycles, wild-land fire control, conservation, and commerce based on those natural resources. I never heard the associate professor use the word "environment" or "environmentalist" during the course. Granted, it was years ago, and course outlines do change over time as new information on any given subject becomes available. But, the disconnect suggests the environmentalist movement is a recent concoction that has little basis in traditional resource management...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is able to boast about job growth under his watch, noting that over 265,000 jobs, or nearly 37 percent of the jobs created nationwide since the summer of 2009, have been created in the Lone Star state. He credits this growth to a few simple conditions: low taxes, a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, and a legal system that limits frivolous lawsuits. According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly one-fourth of the 70 companies that left California this year relocated to Texas. When new or relocating companies and investors survey the landscape and consider...

According to a recently released German study, the supposed "environmentally friendly" compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's), are reported to have "cancer causing chemicals" that are sent out when the light is switched on, reports London's Daily Telegraph: Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on. Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

In the early 1970s, America’s dependence on foreign oil was a little over 20 percent. Today, our dependence on foreign oil is over 65 percent. We have become more and more energy dependent because we have never had a serious energy independence strategy, and we still do not have one. Energy independence is within our grasp because we have plenty of energy natural resources. We have billions of barrels of oil, plenty of natural gas reserves, more coal than any other country in the world, lots of places we could build dams for hydroelectricity and some of the safest nuclear...

According to the Congressional Research Service, which nation has the largest energy reserves of all? Surprise! It is the United States. Peter C. Glover of the Energy Tribune writes: In case anyone missed it, let me repeat something that is of a magnitude of 10 on the scale of news-quakes for Joe Public USA: America's combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined - and that's without including America's shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially...

Harrison Schmitt, a former NASA astronaut who was chosen by Gov. Susana Martinez to head up the state's Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, has withdrawn his nomination after a squabble with the Senate Rules Committee over background checks.

Yang Jiechi's visit represents warming relations between the two countries after China distanced itself when a violent crackdown by President Robert Mugabe over disputed elections in 2008 soured the investment climate. But there have been suggestions in the local media that Mr Yang will not get a friendly reception from all quarters. A reported agreement that could see China hand over as much as $10 billion in loans in return for access to Zimbabwe's platinum and revenue from its diamond fields has caused a row among government officials, one of whom dismissed it as a "raw deal".

Russia and China have enjoyed a close but lopsided economic relationship since the mid-2000s. Beijing sees its giant neighbor to the west rather as little more than a source of energy and other commodities to feed China's rapidly growing economy. The results of recent meetings between senior Russian officials and China's premier Wen Jiabao suggest that the relationship is unlikely to change anytime soon. Oil, sweet oil During his November 24 talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Chinese premier announced that earlier in the day a total of 13 contracts were signed, worth $8.5 billion in total. Prime Minister...

Those who have seen the economy of the People’s Republic of China up close and personal do not have quite the rosy view of it that outsiders do. Hong Bing Yuan, “Chinese exile, novelist, philosopher and law professor,” shared his less-than-sanguine thoughts on the Dragon at Pepperdine. According to university officials, Yuan pointed out that: * “First, not everyone can participate in the marketplace, which increases the number of exports. If people domestically cannot participate in the economy, then there is more to sell to places like the United States; * “Second, China exploits their abundant source of cheap, poor...

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal...

Two measures OKd by Gov. Gary R. Herbert would allow use of eminent domain to take valuable sites. A long court fight is likely. Supporters hope the bills, which the Republican governor signed Saturday, will trigger a flood of similar legislation throughout the West and, eventually, a U.S. Supreme Court battle that it hopes to win -- against long odds. More than 60% of Utah is owned by the U.S. government, and policy makers complain that federal ownership hinders their ability to generate tax revenue and adequately fund public schools... Initially, the state would target three areas, including the Kaiparowits...

More than a dozen pristine landscapes, wildlife habitats and scenic rivers in 11 Western states, some larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, are under consideration by the Obama administration to become America's newest National Monuments -- a decision the administration can make unilaterally without local input or congressional approval.

HARARE (AFP) – Zimbabwe is considering mortgaging its mineral wealth to offset the country's 5.4 billion dollar debt owed to multilateral donor agencies, a government report says. The ministry of finance report seen by AFP said various options were being considered for paying off the external debt, an essential step to secure new financing from lenders for 2010-2012. "A key conditionality for unlocking new financing of 7.5 billion -- 10 billion (dollars) ... evolves around the development of a Debt Relief and Arreas Clearance Strategy for the country's external debt overhang of 5.4 billion, of which 3.8 billion is in...

A lot has changed since the General Mining Law was passed in 1872, but very little has changed about the law itself. Those who want it to be modernized say this finally may be the year they get reform. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has introduced a reform bill, and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., already has held a hearing on his own legislation. Attempts over the years to change the law have foundered against the political influence of the mining industry, but members of Congress say prospects for an overhaul are...

The US-China economic nexus is the most strategically important in the world today. The nexus is in danger of fraying as US Government dependence on Chinese money grows even as China now has more options for how it spends or invests its huge surplus than it did even 2 or 3 years ago. The Chinese have growing doubts about the wisdom of continuing to buy US Treasuries at their current enormous rate.

Anyone who believes the "green energy" hype should spend a day driving around Buchanan County, Virginia, to view the cross-hatching of excavations and roadcuts which scar the landscape. Southern Appalachia is experiencing a natural-gas boom, but the production of this "green" fuel is far from benign.